by Chris with Hair
10:35 PM, on a warm July night, my housemate, Dan (a.k.a.
Stupid Dan, Deadweight, needs to get a jobby-job) decides
he wants CRACK. We're not talkin' sexual needs, were
talking about that heady narcotic confection that's easier
to get than a cold sore at a VD mixer. So he and his friend
Whopper get some money and walk out the door into that shitty
ass Haverhill, Massachusetts neighborhood all of us call home.
Two hours later, they're so bummed. Turns out they went everywhere
looking for CRACK but no one would sell to them. Now seeing as how
they had never done CRACK and there had been recent police raids in
my ‘hood, drug dealers would find it easier to stick to regulars.
Whopper, who wasn't too wild about CRACK, decided to just forget it.
He wasn't going to go out of his way to find the rock anytime soon.
Dan was a different story. Dan was determined to smoke CRACK. From
his drive and determination, I would have thought he was already
smoking it. He went out into the streets of Haverhill everyday
looking for CRACK. I'd see him talking to drug dealers all the time.
Never once would anyone sell to him
Dan: "Hey, I want some rock."
Pusher man: "Excuse me?"
Dan: "I wanna smoke some rock."
Pusher man (amused): "No. Go home, white boy."
Needless to say, Dan was fruitless in his efforts and garnered little
from going to CRACK houses other than the knowledge that the old code of
hanging a pair of sneakers on a power line outside the front door was now
used as a decoy to fool the police. Drug dealers started to laugh at Dan,
taunt him, sell him rock candy, but never did Dan ever buy any actual CRACK.
Every morning, Dan would get up grab his only money a $10 bill and walked the
streets for hours trying to get CRACK. Each evening he'd come home empty-handed.
He never looked for work, he never did any chores around the house, he just
looked for CRACK. I guess it was for the best. I would hate to think what
would have happened if he had succeeded that summer. I mean, I pictured a
scene from Jungle Fever where I'd come home from work to find my TV gone.
Me: "Dan, where's my TV?"
Dan: "I smoked the TV! All right? I smoked it!"
After I moved out of that apartment, I didn't hear of or see Dan for
months. The deadbeat owed me money, and was in hiding from everyone
who he owed money to. I finally heard about Dan from a mutual
friend. "Dan? He's doing CRACK." Well, let me tell you kids
something. We all need a dream in life. Not one person who ever
accomplished anything found their journey an easy one. It is the
hard won goal, the dream fulfilled through determination and despite
adversity, that has the most worth. It is for that very reason that
I don't feel sorry for Dan and that I salute him, that crumpled $10 bill
and a dream that got him out of bed every morning and gave purpose to his life.
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